Toasterlab Mixed Reality Performance Atelier

Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Toasterlab’s Mixed Reality Performance Atelier is a two-year deep dive into the current mixed reality methods used by theatre and performance makers across Canada and the U.S. Starting in July 2019, every four months, an Atelier cohort will present progress on their projects at a symposium hosted by Toasterlab in partnership with a university and the Atelier’s advisory board, made up of leading artists and technologists working extended reality. When the Atelier concludes in June 2021, Toasterlab will share open source tools, guidelines, and instructional material for the creation of immersive media in an arts context.
Atelier Projects
Our Atelier projects include:
- Albion VR Project – Erin Brandenburg, Kitchenband (Toronto)
- Groundworks – Dancing Earth Creations: Groundworks (San Francisco)
- I.F.: Indigenous Futurities: Dancing Earth in CyberSpace – Dancing Earth Creations (Online)
- Oh, What a Lovely War – Hart House Theatre (Toronto)
- Parkway Forest VR – Friends of Parkway Forest Park, Toasterlab (Toronto)
- Public2 – Jane Gotch Dance, Jane Gotch, Choreographer (Toronto/Kansas City)
- Remember Me – Sharon Reshef (Toronto / Prague)
- The Right Way – Daniele Bartolini for the Venice Biennale (Venice)
- The Stranger 2.0 – Dopolavoro Teatrale (DLT), Daniele Bartolini, Artistic Director (Toronto)
- TrailOff – Swim Pony, Adrienne Mackey, Artistic Director (Philadelphia)
To check out all of Toasterlab’s projects, including those participating in the Atelier, head on over to our projects page.
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Symposiums
Toronto – York University – November 5, 2019

The Mixed Reality Performance Symposium: York is the first of six symposiums hosted by mixed reality producers Toasterlab, and will explore extended and mixed reality performance. Artists and new media creators will share modes of working and recent successes in VR, AR, and immersive theatre. It was done in partnership with the Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technology.
Projects include:
- After Dan Graham – David Han, York University (Toronto) – VIDEO
- Albion VR Project – Erin Brandenburg, Kitchenband (Toronto) – VIDEO
- Blue Hour/36Q – Blue Hour/36Q, Paul Cegys, Project Leader (Waterloo / Prague) – VIDEO
- Bury the Wren – Beth Kates, Playground Studios (Calgary/Toronto) – VIDEO
- Jacqueiries/Cohort – Jacob Niedzwiecki (Toronto/Calgary) – VIDEO
- Groundworks – Dancing Earth Creations: Groundworks (San Francisco) – VIDEO
- HistArch3D – Harrison Forsyth, York University (Toronto) – VIDEO
- On Screen Protocols & Pathways Guide: A Media Production Guide to Working With First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Communities, Cultures, Concepts, & Stories – Meagan Byrne – VIDEO
- Parkway Forest VR – Friends of Parkway Forest Park, Toasterlab (Toronto) – VIDEO
- Public2 – Jane Gotch Dance, Jane Gotch, Choreographer (Toronto/Kansas City) – VIDEO
- Remember Me – Sharon Reshef (Toronto/Prague) – VIDEO
- The Stranger 2.0 – Dopolavoro Teatrale (DLT), Daniele Bartolini, Artistic Director (Toronto) – VIDEO
- TrailOff – Swim Pony, Adrienne Mackey, Artistic Director (Philadelphia) – VIDEO
- Stratigraphic City – Taien Ng-Chan (Toronto) – VIDEO
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Vancouver – University of British Columbia – February 21, 2020

UBC is the second of six symposiums hosted by mixed reality producers Toasterlab, and will explore extended and mixed reality performance. The focus of this symposium is to provide insight into the production process and hands-on experience with 360VR cameras, VR headsets, geolocation, motion capture and other creation and distribution tools.
Toasterlab Project Updates: – VIDEO
- The Stranger 2.0 – Dopolavoro Teatrale (DLT), Daniele Bartolini, Artistic Director (Toronto)
- Albion VR Project – Erin Brandenburg, Kitchenband (Toronto)
- Live Culture Coast – Amber Peoples, Artistic Director (Oregon)
- Oh, What a Lovely War at Hart House – Autumn Smith, Artistic Director (Toronto)
- Parkway Forest VR – Friends of Parkway Forest Park, Toasterlab (Toronto)
With presentations from:
- The Fun Palace Carnival of Mixed Realities – “Why Didn’t Anyone Pick Up A Broom” – Patrick Pennefather (UBC/CDM) – VIDEO
- Winters Dance 2019 – Julie-ann Saroyan, Small Stage (SFU) – VIDEO
- Boids, Colossus, YumeGo – Hector Alzate (Universidad EAFIT/ TRU/CDM) – VIDEO
- Kendra Fanconi, The Only Animal – VIDEO
- Stratigraphic City – Taien Ng-Chan, Soyfish Media (York U/Hamilton) – VIDEO
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Online – FoldA/Howlround – June 4 & 13-19, 2020

The third gathering of the Atelier was planned in partnership with FoldA to integrate with this year’s program. With FoldA going fully online due to COVID19, so goes the Toasterlab AGM. In this hour-long session, the MRPA Advisory Board will share updates to recent projects, and talk about the opportunities and challenges faced by engaging in the necessary adaptation to the current realities of producing performance when we can’t gather.
Annual General Meeting
Projects include:
- The use of accessible motion capture for Oh, What a Lovely War at Hart House
- Update to the TailOff project with Swim Pony Performing Arts
- What happens when you can’t get there: Parkway Forest 2 and The Right Way with DLT
- Work on I.F. : Indigenous Futurities : Dancing Earth in CyberSpace
tMoRPH – Mixed Reality Performance Hack
This session will also introduce Toasterlab’s Mixed Reality Performance Hackathon (tMoRPH), June 13 – 19, which will focus on questions surrounding the delivery of immersive performance content in remote and low-bandwidth conditions and will include a live presentation of I.F. : Indigenous Futurities : Dancing Earth in CyberSpace on June 18.
Final Projects Presented:
- Haunts – Presented by Liz Fisher and TJ Young
- Future Histories – Presented by Jacob Zimmer
- Holodeck Hamlet – Presented by Lacey Erb, Jesse Freedman, and Michaela Pnacekova
- Dream Co-creation – Presented by Tera Kilbride
- Monument for Memory – Presented by Ramona Caprariu, Elina Lex, and Jake Zaslav
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AltSpaceVR – Performance and XR 2020 (PXR2020) – October 2 & 3, 9 & 10, 2020

For the fourth Toasterlab gathering, we partnered on Performance and XR 2020 (PXR2020), a Virtual Reality Symposium for Canadian artists and XR technologists, exploring creation and performance in XR.
The symposium occurs over four sessions in Virtual Reality, and includes a Keynote presentation by Yelena Rachitsky, Executive Producer at Oculus Experience, and Endnote presentation by interdisciplinary artist Casey Koyczan. Canadian theatre artists will examine virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality (collectively known as XR) in the creation of live performance, developing and sharing strategies with industry leaders and XR Programmers. With virtual presentations of artistic works by Electric Company Theatre, Single Thread Theatre, Jo Jack et John, Toasterlab, and others, PXR2020 aims to foster creative experimentation with these emerging mediums in dialogue with the IT sector.
Presentations Include:
- Archiact VR – Tyler McCulloch
- Conversations in XR, including:
- FUTURE NOTE, Casey Koyczan – VIDEO
- Lightning in a Bottle, Nick Fox Gieg – VIDEO
- Keynote: Oculus Experiences, Yelena Rachitsky – VIDEO
- OrpheusVR, Debi Wong – VIDEO
- Phones and Tablets in Performance & Product Ownership, Cohort – VIDEO
- Shocap/7 Doigts, Athomas Goldberg – VIDEO
- Socially Engaged, Darren O’Donnell – VIDEO
- Unity Technologies, Dan Miller – VIDEO
- Violette, Catherine Bourgeois – VIDEO
- XR Performance Creation Experiment, Beth Kates – VIDEO
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Online – Level Up: The Dramaturgy of Digital Performance and Design / Associated Designers of Canada – January 18 – February 18, 2021
Engaging in meaningful conversations on digital tools in live performance
Associated Designers of Canada and ToasterLab present the symposium Level Up: The Dramaturgy of Digital Performance and Design livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv from Monday 18 January to Saturday 13 February 2021.
Hosted by The Associated Designers of Canada, this symposium consists of a series of presentations and moderated discussions between presenters and attendees which will actively bring together collaborators from across the country in an online platform that is safe and without risk, an absolute necessity for the success of our Canadian performing arts ecology at this time.
All events are free to attend, and open to everyone, members of the ADC and non-members alike!
Check out the Symposium Schedule for full details.
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Upcoming
- Kingston – FoldA/Queen’s University – May/June, 2021
Advisory Board
Support
The Toasterlab Mixed Reality Performance Atelier is made possible by the generous support of…
